How to smash your sales in Q4

I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe that we’re only a few months from the end of the year! Not only is Christmas fast approaching, but so is the biggest sales period of the year. October through to the end of December is full of great marketing opportunities to help you and your business finish off the year strong. That’s why we’ve pulled together a guide to help you navigate and be prepared for the silly season!

Set your business goals

Before beginning any campaign, it’s important to set your goals and expectations so that you have something measurable to work towards. So, before we get stuck into exploring the opportunities that Q4 has for us, let’s take some time to ask ourselves what we want and need to accomplish in order to finish 2021 well.

We have created a Q4 cheat sheet for you to use to help you get organised. In this worksheet you’ll be given the opportunity to write down three goals. In order to craft your goals, spend some time thinking about what position you’d like your business to be in before starting the new year. What stock do you want to clear to make room for exciting new products? How much revenue do you need to make? How many new customers do you want on your email lists?

When setting your goals be sure to cover a variety of areas. Try coming up with one financial goal (e.g. 25% increase in sales), one practical goal (e.g. clear all Summer 2020/21 stock), and one marketing goal (e.g. 250 new email subscribers).

Key Dates and opportunities

While there are many great opportunities to consider for Q4, what’s most important is choosing what fits with your brand’s identity and will be well received by your ideal customers. Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to overwhelm and spam your audience. Choose 3-4 events from the list below and do them well, keep your sales campaigns to 3-4 days to create a sense of urgency, and make sure you’ve given yourself plenty of lead time to create the assets needed for a successful campaign. That means giving yourself at least a couple of week’s heads up!

Promotional Ideas

So now that you’ve nailed down your key events, it’s time to brainstorm what your promotions are going to be. It can be daunting not knowing where to start or wondering what will work. That’s why we’ve come up with a list of tried and tested ideas that will be sure to help you succeed this quarter:

Make a plan

After you’ve chosen your key events and your promotion ideas, it’s time to start planning what your next few months will involve. We have included a cheatsheet on our website to help you get organised. We recommend printing this off and writing down your plans to come back to over time. While you begin creating content and preparing for your promotions, it’s important to make sure that you and your website are ready for increased traffic and sales. We’ve provided a checklist here to help you.